Sound Off: Janitor’s strike

The striking janitors may have scored a victory last week, but not when it came to the terms of the deal. As I discuss in my column today, the cleaning companies who employ them agreed to far less than what the janitors were demanding.

That doesn’t mean the janitors’ strike was in vain. It’s impressive that a group of unskilled workers could exert any leverage at all in a market like Houston. So the victory may be more symbolic than monetary.

And it’s one more example of the ripple effect from leaving the federal minimum wage unchanged for so long.

What do you think? Did the janitors win? Or was this a hollow victory? Would a higher minimum wage have made the whole issue moot? Is it better to have a patchwork of state and local minimum wage rules, or one comprehensive federal one?

7 Responses

What do you think? Did the janitors win? Or was this a hollow victory?

It was a pretty hollow victory.

When prosecutors asked for and received higher than usual bail for the arrested protestors (many who were imported from other cities) after a month of strikes that annoyed some motorists but was otherwise mostly unnoticed (i.e. buildings were cleaned), things apparently got too expensive/dicey for SEIU — which scurred back to the table, hurriedly cut a deal, and declared victory.

And most everyone dutifully reported it as a great victory for the janitors. As you point out, the details of the deal suggest otherwise. I would have guessed that sort of analysis might have interested more of the people covering the great “victory” but I sometimes am surprised.

A group of unskilled workers in search of higher wages without them improving their communication, educational or job skills, oh not to mention that most of them are illegal aliens, just what the SEIU is looking for. Just bring in a bunch of out of state people to protest and let’s make it look like more than the attempt at a power grab of the union that it is. What victory Loren? This was a union scam.

Let’s see. 5,300 janitors will now have health care when they didn’t before. They won an income increase of more than 126 percent. When was the last time any one not in a union, got a raise that high? But most importantly, they now have a way to steadily increase their wages with each and every contract.

As for the bail being set at $888,888 per person. That was just silly. Thank god, a judge reduced it just hours after the Republican DA decided setting bail for non-violent protestors at 8 times the going rate for a murderer was a somehow a good move.

Left unsaid is the likelihood that at least one contractor may decide this is the time to replace the guy with the mop, the waxer and the buffer operator, with a one-man riding machine that does it all. The buffer will get the new job and a raise, but the mopper and waxer will be out on the street, with no chance of working their way up to buffer man. And one of the smaller tenants,faced with a hike in janitorial costs due to the new wages, may decide to buy a vacuum cleaner and do their own floors and empty their own wastebaskets.

The notion that someone with no marketable skills deserves wages that will support a family makes no more sense than I, living on my SS check and my savings, now deserve an Escalade.

The primary point concerning low wages for unskilled work has not been addressed. The basic issue relating to wages and labor is the fundamental economic law of supply and demand. If the demand is great for labor and the supply is small then the wages paid will go up, conversely, if the supply of labor is great then wages will remain low. The supply of unskilled workers has continuously been increased through the influx of approximately 10,000,000 – 12,000,000 “undocumented workers” and consequently wages for unskilled labor remain low across the entire economic spectrum . Wages for basically unskilled jobs will remain low as long as there is an unlimited supply of unskilled workers.

For those who praise the benefits of having millions of “undocumented workers” participating in the economy, the negative side is that it contributes to having millions of others, most of whom are not “undocumented”, to have to accept low wages for their work because the law of supply and demand keeps “all” unskilled labor wages low.

The janitors new agreement is like putting a band-aid on a compound fracture, it does nothing to solve the real problem.

We do need a minimum wage, and it should be indexed for inflation. Instead, we get political maneuvers every few years. The conservatives insist that increases will lead to job loss (but somehow the data do not bear this out). Eventually, the increase passes. The republic manages to hang on.

For those free-market fanatics who decry the minimum wage, I’ll tell you why we have one. Years ago, the boss at this small computer service bureau where I worked was having an issue with the computer printer. This was an old mainframe printer that printed reports on fan-fold greenbar paper. The paper wasn’t falling into the tray correctly and it was annoying him.

He was heard to remark, “If it wasn’t for that blankety-blank minimum wage, I could pay a little [offensive ethnic characterization] boy 25 cents an hour to hold this paper straight!”

Aside from his obvious bigotry, he demonstrated why we have a minimum wage: to prevent a race to the bottom. Yes, if the minimum wage didn’t exist, market forces would probably let you get away with paying $4.00/hour or $3.00/hour, or even less. And maybe your concience wouldn’t twinge. But it should. We have a minimum wage to prevent, after a fashion, exploitation.

In response to post by Carlin at November 26, 2006, I’ll assure you janitorial workers are skilled labor too. If you ever had cleaning issues that weren’t handled correctly and replacement of carpet and furnishing were required you would soon realize there is a skill and knowledge required. As a facility manager that has been involved with 3 contractor changes the majority of the workers do pass the documentation challenges. With the contract transitions each new contractor suggested their company would not be able to transfer the existing workers to their company because of background and documentation issues and I gladly take that bet. Over 95% have met the requirements each time. I have worked with and managed the contracts of two of the companies involved in this strike and will assure you they try hard to insure their workers are trained and treated as the professionals they are. Unfortunately companies like the one I work for have no loyalties to these workers only look at the total contract cost and often change contractors every 4-6 years just to save 3% to 5% for the building owners (contract values at $500,000 to $700,000 per yr). The same employees will stay and perform the same duties with only the management changing. They loose their seniority and start all over with the new company trying to earn vacations and salaries increases staying usually because of transportation issues. Janitorial contracting is a tough and competitive business and the workers are the ones that usually wind up with the short end of the straw when these contracts change.